


Always Forward

by lloydsglasses



Category: Daredevil (TV), Luke Cage (TV), Marvel Cinematic Universe, The Defenders (Marvel TV)
Genre: Ficlet, Gen, He's also getting the Defenders together, Luke Cage is getting his shit together, One Shot, Post-Series, and it's awesome
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-10-06
Updated: 2016-10-06
Packaged: 2018-08-19 21:59:17
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,200
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8226065
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/lloydsglasses/pseuds/lloydsglasses
Summary: “This guy is Daredevil?” Luke asks incredulously. “Blind Matt Murdock?”Claire spares a quick moment to glare at him. “I think most people just say Matt Murdock.”She’s probably right, although what most people probably don’t realise is that Matt Murdock is a vigilante who takes down organised crime syndicates in his spare time.“Sweet Christmas,” Luke says.





	

Claire gets him a lawyer called Matt, and Matt gets him out of prison. They shake hands when everything is said and done but as the dude walks away, cane tapping softly against the floor, Luke’s eyes follow him warily.

It isn’t that he thinks Matt Murdock is a bad guy; if anything, he seems as decent as they come. There’s just _something_ about him that Luke can’t put his finger on.

The barber shop isn’t a barber shop by the time he gets back there. It’s fixed up all nice again, but the red leather seats have vanished and the clippers and shavers seem to have been replaced by surgical equipment.

“Welcome back,” says Claire, as Luke takes in the metal gurney and the new lights that hang low from the ceiling. The TV’s still there though, as is the swear jar on the counter, and Bobby sits on a low seat against the back wall playing chess, just like always.

“I see you’ve been making some changes to this place,” Luke says with a raised eyebrow.

“It was all her,” says Bobby, without looking up.

He looks back at Claire, and she gazes steadily at him, confidence and determination written clearly in her stance. “I thought it might be a good idea for you to have a base. One that was properly equipped.”

“For what?”

“For anything. For helping people.” She quirks a smile at him. “Hero for hire and all that.”

He looks around him at the remains of the barber shop, and wonders where things are likely to go from here.

 _Always forward,_ says Pop’s voice in his head.

“I’m not a hero and I’m not for hire,” Luke says, and he remains as convinced as that as he ever has been. _Always forward_. “But I do want to help.”

\--

Things get busy again after that. He breaks up fistfights and robberies in Harlem, finds and returns stolen items just like he had with Aisha’s ring, lets kids hang out and watch TV at the shop like Pop used to; he doesn’t give out haircuts like Pop did, but instead Claire bandages up the kids who are more prone to fighting, and it feels like almost like the same thing. Misty Knight drops by every so often, and sometimes she even helps him find the thugs he needs to knock some sense into on that particular day.

And then one evening he sees Matt Murdock again.

Claire gets a phone call, which she takes in the back room of the shop. Her voice sounds quick and frantic, from what Luke can hear over the basketball on the television.

“I need your help,” she says to him when the call is done, and he’s hardly going to say no.

They find the Devil of Hell’s Kitchen motionless and bleeding on the floor of an alleyway.

“So this is the other super-powered friend you keep mentioning?” asks Luke, as Claire dashes forward to check the guy’s pulse. 

“Yeah, found him in my dumpster one day,” she says, and Luke nods as if that sentence makes any sense. “I’ll need you to carry him.”

They cover him in Luke’s coat, both to keep him warm and to stop any passers-by from seeing just who it is he’s carrying. Back at Pop’s, Claire shoos the kids that are clustered around the TV out the door and closes the window blinds. Then she strides straight over to Daredevil, yanks the mask off his face and sets to work treating his head wound.

Luke stares.

“This guy is Daredevil?” he asks incredulously. “ _Blind_ Matt Murdock?”

Claire spares a quick moment to glare at him. “I think most people just say Matt Murdock.”

She’s probably right, although what most people probably _don’t_ realise is that Matt Murdock is a vigilante who takes down organised crime syndicates in his spare time.

“Sweet Christmas,” Luke says.

\--

Matt wakes up properly sometime around 11am, and nearly throws himself of the gurney when he realises that Luke has seen his face. Fortunately for everyone, Luke has quick reflexes and can easily hold him down.

Later that day, Claire sleeps on the couch in the back room while Matt changes into the clothes she went to collect from his apartment.

“How’d you get yours?” Luke asks, looking at Matt critically as the guy finishes the knot on his tie.

“Got hit by a truck, had a load of chemical waste spilled on me. You?”

“I was dumped in a vat of boiling acid.”

“Huh,” says Matt, and starts putting on his shoes.

“You ever think about working with other people?” asks Luke, after a moment of silence. “God knows, I could use the help sometimes.”

“Maybe,” says Matt noncommittally, getting to his feet with a groan.

Luke knows he isn’t seriously considering the offer. “Well whatever. If you ever need a place to lie low, my door’s open. There’s a great nurse here too.”

Matt quirks an honest smile at that, before grabbing his cane and heading towards the back door.

\--

Luke doesn’t see Matt again for a long while, but eventually the guy does come back. This time with a bullet wound in his side.

Matt lies back on the table and stares at nothing as Claire cleans the wound and starts bandaging it. Afterwards, Matt doesn’t say very much at all and certainly doesn’t tell them how he got shot in the first place. Claire and Luke exchange worried looks over his head.

“Matt please,” snaps Claire eventually, temper fraying. “I’ve just saved your life. _Again._ You owe it to me to tell me what’s going on.”

Matt sighs and closes his eyes, bringing a hand up to rub at the side of his face.

“I think I might be in over my head, Claire,” he says quietly. By now, Luke understands the kind of man Matt is, understands just how much it must have cost him to admit to that.

So he steps closer and puts a careful hand on Matt’s shoulder. “We’ve all been there. It’s times like that you don’t wanna face things on your own. So how can we help?”

\--

They end up in the papers.

 _The Saviours of Harlem and Hell’s Kitchen_ , proclaims the New York Bulletin in capital letters, and the article makes Claire laugh so much that she cuts it out and sticks it to the wall.

Matt starts dropping by more often, both in his day clothes and his crime-fighting get-up. He lets Luke know about the crimes he hears on the streets of Harlem and in return Luke helps him clean up in Hell’s Kitchen on a few more occasions.

“I know someone else like us,” Luke says one evening. “She’s good in a fight. Tough. Not much of a team player, but neither are you.”

Matt doesn’t turn towards him, but the scepticism is clear in his voice. “A super-powered, crime-fighting team? We’re not the Avengers.”

“No, and I’m not suggesting we should be,” says Luke, with a shrug. “But I think we could become something else.”

 _Always forward_ , says Pop’s voice in his head. And finally, Luke thinks he understands what forward might look like.

**Author's Note:**

> The world needs more Luke Cage fic rn.
> 
> As ever, come say hi on [tumblr!](http://lloydsglasses.tumblr.com) :)


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